Frozen Fire
by Hotarukun
Summary: After Radiant Shadows. Rabbit doesn't want anything else to do with faeries, but he doesn't have much of a choice. Rabbit and OC. Aislinn and Seth. Irial and Niall.
1. Prologue

_**I've liked Rabbit since "Wicked Lovely". Takes place after "Radiant Shadows". Review if you're interested in the slightest. Thank you, all. **_

Prologue

"_Squares after squares of flame, set up and cut into the aether. Here is our poetry, for we have pulled down the stars to our will. "~Ezra Pound_

Rabbit never liked silence. To him, silence was the same thing as loneliness.

He always had music playing in the tattoo shop. Ani and Tish were forever changing CDs on him. It was hard rock or jazz or indie or psychedelic.

Whatever it was, it was music, and it was noise. The people he loved surrounded him and that was all that mattered.

Here in the High Court or the Court of Shadows as Devlin and his faerie sister were now calling it, he could have whatever music he wanted to keep him company while he drew designs or worked on his art.

But he didn't want it. Every song he heard, even the happy ones, reminded him of Tish, his deceased sister. The one who hadn't been a faerie but had been killed by one anyways, because even if you were a mortal, if you knew a faerie you were ultimately pulled into their world despite your personal wishes.

And Tish had been murdered because of it.

And so he sat in silence, barely possessing the energy to pick up a paintbrush or pen anymore. Being alone was better than being with empty memories of a sweet smile and energetic laughter.

Ani would visit him periodically. Rabbit didn't know when exactly. Keeping track of time or what day it was wasn't in his list of priorities. Sometimes she would be alone; sometimes she would bring Devlin or Rae with her. Even Seth came once, soft eyes at odds with his hard jaw and clenched fists.

He was worried. They were all worried.

"I think you need to go back to the mortal world."

Rabbit looked up foggily at his sister-daughter. "What?"

Ani stood with her hands on her hips, feral and wild and he felt a pang of loss accompanied with a stronger surge of pride. The feelings were familiar and he almost twitched a smile. "It's making you crazy here. You need to get out and go open up again. Seth said he'd keep an eye on you." Her voice shook a little and he realized she didn't _want _him to go but that she _needed_ himto go.

He stood up and swayed for a moment, steadying himself and hopefully succeeding in hiding his fatigue from Ani's alert eyes. "It doesn't matter to me."

She flinched and he felt horrible. The hesitation in her dark eyes told him she wanted to talk about Tish but that was the last thing he wanted to discuss. She hung in the air between them like a ghost. Tish was always the one who kept the peace.

"Devlin is here now. Seth is waiting for you on the other side of the veil." She murmured the rest quickly and softly and left without another word.

_hotarukun_

Devlin pushed open the veil, solemn as ever. Rabbit paused and looked at him meaningfully. "Keep an eye on Ani for me. She's all I have left."

Devlin's eyes widened slightly but he nodded. "I promise you that I would let harm come to me before I let anything hurt your sister."

Rabbit nodded back once, curt. "I believe you. Thank you."

Seth waited for him on the other side. "Hey, looks like I'm your bodyguard."

Rabbit rolled his eyes at Seth's grin. "Yay," he said without enthusiasm.

The new faerie's eyes darted around restlessly as they walked through Huntsdale. Normally Rabbit would've thought it relieving that the graveyard was far away enough from civilization that no one could see him entering and exiting so frequently but at the moment he could care less.

"How's Ash?" Rabbit asked Seth, trying to sound nonchalant, yet like he actually meant it. He achieved neither.

Seth glanced at him but smiled and shrugged. "Worried about her court as usual, but she's letting me talk to her, so that's something."

Rabbit raised his eyebrows and nodded and neither made any attempt at conversation for the rest of the walk.

When they got to the tattoo shop, Seth stopped. "I'll be around the area and I'll check on you every hour. Bananach doesn't strike me as the type who will attack during broad daylight, being a creature of the night and all, but we're taking precautions."

Rabbit nodded again. He felt like a puppet. _Precautions…every hour…broad daylight…Bananach…_

He turned as Seth vanished, jaw hitting the ground when he saw the sign in the doorway: OPEN.

"What?" He opened the door, unable to hear the chiming of the bell announcing a new customer as music blasted through new, hidden speakers.

"_Don't push me so hard, don't push me so far, don't cage me in, don't tie me down…"_

Rabbit felt his blood pressure go up, fatigue an impossible feeling, replaced with one of rage and astonishment. "What the hell?" He pounced around for the CD player and ejected the disk with a hard jab that nearly sent the system crashing.

There was about five seconds of silence before an indignant, high, crackling voice called out. "Hey! What happened to my tunes?"

Rabbit snapped his head in the direction of the voice in time to see a girl, _a faerie, _bounce out of the backroom. His rage subsided slightly as he looked her over.

She had wispy, mahogany, waist-length hair and narrow blue eyes. What struck him as odd was her attire: ripped jeans, sneakers and tie-dyed t-shirt. What kind of fey wore that?

"Who are you?" Rabbit asked, still hunched protectively over his CD player.

"I'm Laien. Who are you?" She folded her arms.

"Rabbit. This is _my _tattoo shop and _my _CD player." He realized he sounded like a five-year-old but he didn't care. "Why are you here? Who let you in?"

"Irial." She blinked and stuck out her hand. "I was filling in for you. Nice to meet you."


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Laien felt herself sigh inwardly as Rabbit stared down at her outstretched hand hesitantly. He was still clutching his music system possessively and she felt guilty for messing with the speakers.

He finally took it with a large hand and shook it once, jerking his hand back more swiftly than he possibly realized. It had been rough and sure but ultimately human and she attempted to squash the burst of excitement that coursed through her.

_Well that was weird._

He raised deep brown eyes to her and the young faery could tell he was fighting his own curiosity. "So Irial asked you to fill in for me while I was…away?"

"More or less."

"Who are you again?"

She grinned. _Oh,__if__you__only__knew._"Laien."

He nodded slowly as if trying to place the name. "Laien. And you're from what court?"

_Great.__Now__how__do__I__answer__this__one?_She cleared her throat. "Well I'm not from around here."

He looked her up and down pointedly and finally stepped away from the CD player to head into the back room. "That much, I could figure out." She could hear his voice as he shouted over the clanging of tools. "But I'll mind my own business. You can leave now by the way, too. I'm back and there isn't really a reason for you to…what?"

Laien blinked away her smirk. "What do you mean 'what'?"

"You're sitting there smiling like a lunatic. Is something funny?" He cocked an eyebrow at her in mock amusement.

_The__face__that__I__'__m__getting__away__with__this__is__absolutely__hilarious._"Not at all, Rabbit. But you won't be able to get rid of me that easy."

Rabbit put down his tools with a little more force than necessary. "I'm not in the mood, faery. Stop with the mind games."

She could detect the annoyance in his voice but was surprised by the raw hurt emanating from him. Even a human could pick up on pain like that.

She softened her gaze. "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to take over. I still believe you need help though. There were a lot of orders put through when you were gone and I can help organize them for you."

Rabbit stared at her. "Did Irial tell you why I was gone? Or where I was?"

Laien raised her dark eyebrows over her bright eyes. "No, he didn't."

"Good." He looked down at the table thoughtfully.

The faery leaned against a wall and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "Um. So."

Rabbit sighed and ran a hand through his already messy hair. "So where is the list of requests, newbie?"

_hotarukun_

Irial watched Niall pace back and forth. He left a mad tornado of shadows in his wake and the former king deliberated whether or not he wanted to continue to watch Niall in his tizzy or stop him and cause another one.

"I can't believe you let her stay here," the Dark Court king hissed, glancing at Irial with anger. He stopped for a moment and threw up his arms. "And then you let her work in there with mortals! Are you insane, Irial? What if they realize it? What will happen then?"

Irial rolled his eyes. Such a simple matter. His king was vastly overreacting. "Calm yourself, my king. Laien and I had a talk when she arrived and we made a deal."

"Clearly she doesn't know you."

Irial grinned at Niall's wry expression but shrugged. "It's all under control. Trust me for once?"

Niall's eyes followed Irial's face as he thought over the loopholes in the sentence. He finally gave up with a loud sigh, running his hand over his face tiredly. He sank into the couch next to his friend. "I hope you know what you're doing."

Irial leaned his head back into Niall's lap and closed his eyes. "Me too."

_hotarukun_

One use Rabbit had already discovered from Laien was that she was both a reminder and a distraction. She reminded him that he was still alive, not some former sloth of himself, muted grays and sluggish words. But the strangeness of someone else working beside him distracted him from the fact that she wasn't Ani or Tish, his beloved sister-daughters.

She talked a mile a minute about absolutely nothing and Rabbit found it calming in a way, only able to make out important words over the CDs he kept feeding his player as she twirled around to the beat, dusting and lifting and wiping. It was the closest thing to normalcy that he remembered and he reveled in the feel of it, knowing it wouldn't be too long before it was shattered.

Rabbit looked over the list, sinking back into his niche with surprising ease. _This__is__where__home__is__for__me,__Ani._

He smirked at the strange requests and furrowed his brow at the touching ones that had to do with loved ones.

"What's that face for? Wow."

He titled his chin up from behind the counter to look into Laien's smiling eyes. _She__'__s__cute__for__a__faery.__Not__all__shiny__and__perfect-looking._"What?"

She rolled her eyes again. "Never mind. Do you need anything? I can go get coffee and sandwiches down the street or something."

He shook his head. "No, I'm fine. But can you heat this up for me? The microwave's in the back room."

He handed the half-filled mug (one he refused to look at for too long because Ani had made it for him in school when she was a pup) to her, missing the female's obvious grimace as she left.

_hotarukun_

Laien looked at the microwave and then down at the murky, bitter smelling liquid in the colorful mug and then back up at the microwave. She narrowed her eyes worriedly and groaned.

She peered out to see Rabbit immersed in sketching, shadows under his eyes more prominent in the fading light. Smiling victoriously, she unfurled her fingers and blew into her palm.

_hotarukun_

The mug appeared in front of him, fuller than before and steaming. "There you are, boss," she chirped. "Now it is closing time and I'm out of here. See you tomorrow."

Rabbit opened his mouth but she was out the door with a backwards wave and he settled into his chair again with a shake of his head. It took him a minute later when he was taking a sip of his coffee to realize he hadn't heard the microwave once.


End file.
